A Simple Theoretical Model for the MJO (Invited Presentation)

David Raymond enjoys working with data as well as going to and organizing the field projects. He is also a modeler and the creator of several numerical models. But to me he is, first and foremost, an innovative and excellent theoretician. In the year 2000 Dave Raymond hypothesized that the more moisture we have in the atmospheric column, the more precipitation we will get. This idea was born from listening to the New Mexico weather forecast where they kept repeating that with more moisture we'll get more rain.

I will talk about the Madden-Julian oscillation and its connection to Dave's idea from 2000, today known as the moisture mode concept. I will connect the moisture mode with Kerry Emaunuel's WISHE idea and talk about the intraseasonal mode that is unstable only for the long wavelengths and resembles the MJO. Our findings are based on a simple linear model that has been developed over many years of paper and pencil brainstorming, heated discussions, and inspirational moments between Dave and myself.